The world of cryptocurrency is full of scams, as is everything at this point. From hackers to dating sites trickery, crypto theft is becoming more common. However, a recent multi-million dollar NFT heist has thrust the discussion into the limelight.
NFT Heist steals $2.2 million worth of cryptoart
Reported by ARTNews, Ross + Kramer Gallery owner, Todd Kramer, was the victim of a massive cryptoart heist. At the time of writing, the Kramer theft is the largest NFT theft yet, although its far from the biggest crypto theft.
Due to a massive phishing scam, Kramer saw the loss of 15 NFTs from his Ethereum wallet. Their cryptoart collection included 4 Bored Apes, one of the more popular cryptoart collections. The stolen set was valued at around $2.2 million.
In a now-deleted tweet, Kramer announced: “I been hacked. All my Apes gone. This just sold please help me” after his crypto assets were sold online.
While Kramer reached out for help, he was instead met with ridicule. Many mocked them for putting their trust in an unregulated, decentralised market. In what is essentially an outlaw market, there's little way to stop hackers from stealing assets.
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Opensea controversially steps in
Despite the entire purpose of crypto is decentralisation, Kramer did manage to recover from the NFT heist. NFT platform Opensea was able to freeze sales of Kramer’s stolen assets, which was criticised for being a centralised act in a decentralised space.
“OpenSea is a blockchain explorer... across different blockchains,” the platform told ARTNews. “We do not have the power to freeze or delist NFTs that exist on these blockchains. However, we do disable the ability to use OpenSea to buy or sell stolen items. Since this issue emerged, we’ve built security tools and processes to combat theft on OpenSea.”
This isn't the first NFT heist to occur, and it won't be the last. As these scams get more common, the integrity of the decentralised platform will certainly be questioned.